


Of Godhood, and the Nature of Belief

by firefright



Category: American Gods - Neil Gaiman, Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-10
Updated: 2015-09-10
Packaged: 2018-04-20 03:06:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4771154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firefright/pseuds/firefright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>America is not a God.</p>
<p>Or at least he thinks he isn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Godhood, and the Nature of Belief

"Loki isn't Odin's son, you know."

"No?" America pulled his gaze away from the screen where _Thor_ was playing to the nation sitting beside him. Denmark had sprawled back over an entire couch to himself, lounging like one of the lions that marked his coat of arms. "What was he then?"

"His brother, blood brother, not by birth. His partner in crime." He wore a smile on his face, indulgent and amused by what was happening onscreen, without the condescending tone in his voice that England would have used if he were saying the same thing. Denmark didn't look offended by the changes the movie made to the mythology at all. "He's a redhead too and much more of troublemaker than this one. Loki Lie-Smith," he murmured softly, as if to himself, "He who'll help bring about the end of the world."

By this point in his life America was used to the disparity in tense that sometimes happened during conversations that happened between himself and the older nations. Trying to correct them was a sure ticket to an argument so he no longer tried, and was too curious to know where Denmark was going with this to want to interrupt him. "Ragnarök, right?"

"Right." Denmark's thumb brushed up and down the neck of his beer as he talked, "So long as someone else doesn't beat him to it first."

"How could someone beat him to it?" When he heard these stories they always sounded absolute, a certainty. 

"There's a lot of Gods."

"In your stories?"

"In all stories." Denmark shook his head, taking a pull of beer before carrying on, "All countries. The world's full of God's and apocalyptic possibilities, it's a waiting game. My old mythology, the Christian tale, Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, the Hindu's, they're all out there and someday..." he lifted his free hand, fingers curled into a fist before flying out to an open palm, miming an explosion.

America frowned, "Do you really believe that?"

"I know it, I've seen them."

"You've seen God's?" Now he couldn't keep the sceptic from creeping into his voice, as much as he tried. His people were largely religious, sure, but America found himself placing a lot of faith in science instead these days. Every day amazing discoveries were made, dispelling the beliefs of the past that chalked up so much phenomena to divine intervention.

Sometimes there were days where he felt compelled to go to church and talk to the Almighty, but not too many.

"All my life. In the streets, in the temples," The other nation laughed, smile turning sly at the end. "And in the mirror."

His eyebrows rose, sure that Denmark was just messing with him but asking anyway, "You think you're a God?"

"Don't you?" Denmark's attention pulled away from the television entirely, his large body swinging up and round into a sitting position. He leaned forward, gaze alive and alight with the kind of fervour America had sometimes seen in the eyes of worshippers on a Sunday morning. "Aren't we Gods? Don't they worship us? They speak our names with reverence, they make themselves our followers, they _believe_ in us. They have days dedicated to our celebration!" his hands flew upwards, beer spilling out of the bottle and onto the carpet. "They make sacrifices to us each day on the battlefield!"

"They're not sacrifices." America responded uncomfortably.

"July 4th, that's your day. One of them anyway, you have others right?" Denmark was on a roll, America could see, his accent growing thicker the faster he spoke. "They shoot up fireworks in the sky, yell your name and there's parades, barbecues, so many rituals all made for you. That's belief, that's religion. They make you, you make them. You see what I'm saying?"

America shook his head, feeling a faint chill run through him at the notion. It felt dangerous and disturbing. "We're not Gods, Denmark."

"How else do you explain us? Gods exist when belief exists, that's their power and their detriment. They live so long as they're believed in and crumble when that belief is gone, killed by their successors. That's what happened to Rome and all the other Ancient One's, they lost their belief and now they're just memory." Denmark's hands dropped, "The same as Gods. The Christian God killed a lot of the old one's."

"It's not like that though, God's aren't--"

"You'd see them more, you know, if you believed." America watched Denmark slump back, tirade apparently over already.

"Are you implying I've already seen them?"

The nation kept smiling, a smile that made America think of sharp steel and the salty tang of ocean spray. "I know you have, they're everywhere. Their believers carried them everywhere they went. Mine took Odin and Loki to your shores long before you were even born, back when your land was home to many like us."

"That's bull, Denmark."

Denmark just laughed again and if he was offended he hid it under the shield of that humour. "Maybe, I just think you need to look harder."

"I'm pretty sure I'd know if I'd seen a God." Shaking his head America took another sip of his beer and turned his gaze back to the screen. It was a good movie and he didn't like this conversation anymore. "You know, I think I like my version better. It's cooler this way, Loki and Thor as brothers, I mean."

Out of the corner his eye he saw Denmark still for a moment, a moment in which he looked tremendously, terribly old, like all the weight of the millennia he'd walked the earth pulled on his shoulders. He'd seen England and even France look that way sometimes, always when they thought no one else was looking at them. America always hoped he'd never look the same way.

"Well," the nation said, sounding like he was conceding a point to something America hadn't meant as an argument, "maybe next time I see Loki at your place he'll be a brunette."

"You'll have to let me know."

\----

"Do you think we're Gods?"

England's hands stilled in the middle of pulling weeds from America's garden. The idea hadn't left America's head since the conversation with Denmark in Copenhagen a week ago and, though he'd tried to squash the temptation, he finally couldn't resist bringing it up to England. "Do you?"

America pulled a face, "Don't do that, don't answer my question with a question, just tell me what you think."

He watched his one-time caretaker and now full-time ally carefully, studying the stoop of England's shoulders and the bow of his head over the flowerbed like he could divine his answer from body language alone. It was hard not to bounce his leg impatiently while he waited for him to finish thinking it over.

Finally England spoke, slow and measured, "No... no I don't think we're Gods. Who gave you that idea?"

"Denmark."

"Hm." Weeds were carefully pried up out of the soil, so carefully that the flowers surrounding them probably didn't feel a thing. "He always had some outlandish beliefs."

America was about to heave a sigh of belief, except England apparently wasn't done.

"We're not Gods, we're something else. Gods don't have to answer to mortal men like we do - well usually they don't. We're more..." he trailed off, the silence that followed was punctuated only by the occasional rip of a weed from it's bed until America got tired of waiting and prompted him onwards.

"Like what?"

"The things Gods make, channels."

Well that made no sense at all. "Denmark said he see's Gods still. He said he'd seen them in my streets."

"Of course, I've seen them too. The one's here are different than the one's back across the ocean, but they're here. Gods, spirits, faerie's; people carried them with them when they made the journey to you. They believed and so they're here, though it's not so easy for them over this way."

A groan escaped his lips before he could stop himself, "What's that supposed to mean? Wait, why am I even asking that? There's no Gods walking around here."

"There are, even if you don't recognise them." England seemed to wince, as if he was for once conscious of how that sounded. "I mean - look, have you ever run across a human that didn't seem right to you? One that seemed a little strange, gave you a feeling you couldn't explain? Someone with mismatched eyes, or three women with red hair, an old black man wearing yellow gloves?" There was an edge of desperation in the question.

"No, I don't-" and America stopped for a moment, feeling doubt stab through him. No, he told himself quickly, shaking his head. "I don't know what you're talking about."

England grimaced and finally stood, brushing dirt from his trousers. "You used to see them when you were small, you know? But you stopped somewhere along the way. Yet you still believe in aliens, that's what I don't understand." he shook his head, looking openly perplexed for once, as if this fact was one of the great mysteries of the universe. 

The expression was so peculiar with his thick black eyebrows that America failed to entirely suppress his laugh. "Aliens are completely legit, old man, that's science. You just need to belieeeve!" He thought he could do a pretty good impression of Mulder when he put his mind to it. 

"Funny," came the dry reply, "I could say the same thing to you." England turned to head back inside, "Come along, it's time for tea."

"You mean coffee."

"I mean tea, you incorrigible brat."

"In my house it's always coffee."

\----

"Sometimes I have tea with Czernobog and his sisters, in Chicago." Belarus said, her silvery blonde hair spilling forwards over her shoulders as she pulled her bra strap up.

"You don't mean that." America threw himself back on the bed, hands over his face. The smell of her perfume lingered on the pillow when he turned his face to it. "You can't be serious." He'd thought he could trust Belarus to be on his side about this out of everyone he hadn't already asked.

She raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow at him, speaking in a tone he'd learned meant she was teasing only recently. "I am always serious. I will take you next time, if you like, but you must promise to be polite and," The tone fell away, "you must not make bets with him if he challenges you to play checkers. Oh, and bring money."

"Why can't I make bets?"

"Because trying to put your head back together enough for you to fix yourself, after you've been hit by a sledgehammer, will not be fun for me."

America stared at her, "That's fucked up."

"Gods are 'fucked up'." The swear sounded cuter when she said it. "Bring money."

He pushed himself back up off the bed, sitting up and looking mournful at the sight of her tugging her dress on next. "Isn't it usually the host who provides dinner?"

"Zorya Vechernyaya will cook, but this country has been difficult for them, they are far from home and work is hard to come by these days."

Every time he brought up this topic with someone he felt more and more lost. "Gods have jobs?"

"Gods are not so different from people sometimes." Belarus pulled her hair back over her shoulder and returned to the bed long enough to lean down and press her lips against his. "When you're ready I will take you, but not before."

Another kiss and she left without letting him ask when that would be, so America shrugged to himself and turned his face back to the pillow, letting the smell of sweat and her perfume help him drift off to sleep.

\----

He dreamed, of what he could not remember, only the stench of animal breath and deep earth followed him back into waking.

\----

Sitting down beside the man in the diner, America could not shake the feeling that he had been awaited. He liked to eat in places like this because he thought it important to talk to his people each day, hear their stories, feel their lives beat in his breast and remind him of who he was. It had never felt like they were waiting for him before though.

The man on the stool next to his was big, of indeterminate ethnicity (though America would bet a whole lot that he had Native blood in him) and rolling a coin between his fingers with an ease that spoke of long practised skill. A flash of intuition had America wondering if he'd done time. 

Normally he'd get a little more than that, normally he'd be certain about what he picked up from his citizens, but this one somehow managed to elude him. "Hey."

"Hey yourself." The man had a cup of coffee and a syrup streaked plate in front of him, only crumbs remaining of pancakes he must have had for breakfast. "Can I help you with something?"

"Just being friendly." America smiled to prove it, the big open smile that said he wore his heart on his sleeve. It was the true blue American smile, the one all his people responded to and he was relieved to find, that despite that strange feeling around him, this one was no exception.

A smile was given in return, the man inclining his head in greeting, "That I'll take. Name's Shadow."

"Alfred. That your real name, Shadow?"

"Is that yours?"

America stilled, knowing his eyes had widened behind his glasses. It didn't sound like a casual throwback of his question. "Uh, yeah, of course. Why would you..." he trailed off and Shadow kept smiling, calm and patient; a big man who looked like a brawler, with a demeanour that suggested he'd rather not hurt even a fly if he didn't have to. "It's one of them."

"But not your real name."

He couldn't get that strange feeling out of his head. "... do I know you?"

"Only the same as you know any of us, I think."

Before he knew what he was doing America found himself speaking, the urge, or maybe the need, to bring up the subject that had been bothering him for weeks. "Hey, can I ask you something weird?"

"Sure man, shoot." Shadow shrugged his massive shoulders, that smile on his face that suggested he wasn't going to find anything America said strange at all and, stranger still, America believed that.

"Do you believe nations can be Gods?"

Shadow considered it, the coin rolling back and forth between his fingers. When he noticed America was watching him do it he made it disappear, raising his hand to make sure the moment of vanishing was witnessed. "Magic?" America blurted out.

"No, just a trick." his big hand opened to show where he'd palmed the silver dollar. "Seems to me anything can be a called a God when people believe in it, guess that includes countries too."

America pressed forward, "Anything like what?"

"Anything. Television's a God, if you want it to be. The whole family sits down at the altar of teevee every night, at least that's what I was told." Shadow grimaced, "I can't watch _I Love Lucy_ ever again, thanks to that."

"I have no idea what you mean by that."

"Trust me, you don't want to." Shadow seemed to consider him, "It bothers you, the idea of nations as Gods."

"I just don't think its right. I can't get my head around it, or the idea there are Gods around us, everywhere but my - my friends believe it." Something about Shadow made it easy to talk, easy to open up and spill out the thoughts inside him. "I don't want... I don't want people to think of - of America like that. Something to be worshipped."

"You know, if it helps, worship can be seen as another word for love." Shadow looked down at the coin in his hand before reaching to knock back the rest of his coffee. "Is that so bad?"

"No," he had to admit, "that's not so bad."

He felt the heavy clap of Shadow's hand on his shoulder, strong enough to push him forwards against the counter. "Perspective, that's what it's all about. The rest..." Shadow closed his eyes, then opened them again to give a America a look that succeeded in being reassuring, "Belief's a personal thing, I've found. Never the same for any two people. You believe what you want based on what you know, whatever makes the world make sense to you and don't worry about what others see. Belief isn't something you can be told, you know? It comes from within. Make sense?"

America felt something ease inside him, it wasn't exactly what he'd wanted to hear but it helped more than anything anyone else had said to him. "Yeah, I think so."

He watched Shadow pull out his wallet and count out bills to leave on the counter, "Good." he stood up and America rather wished he hadn't, he would've enjoyed having Shadow's company a little longer. "And hey, for what it's worth, I think you're doing a good job with..." he reached back, gesturing round the little diner and at the same time so much more. "America's a good country, though maybe not for Gods."

The comment made America smile, "I think the same. Will you be here again?"

"Can't say. You asking if we'll see each other again?"

"I think that's what I'm asking."

Shadow looked pleased, "Yeah, I think so. Maybe not here, but somewhere." he gave America another hearty clap on the shoulder, "Have a good one, Alfred."

"You too, Shadow." America watched him go. Gods in America, he found himself chuckling over his own plate of pancakes, sure.

On his own way out of the diner he almost ran right into an old black man, who flapped hands covered in lemon yellow gloves at him. "You young people! Always in a hurry! Never looking where you are going!"

"I'm sorry, I -"

"I know a story about a young man who was always in a hurry, you know. You should hear. Might teach you something." One bony fingers poked into America's chest.

Despite the lecture America found himself smiling, "Sorry, I'm really in a hurry. Some other time?"

"Hmph! I know a story about a man who was in too much of a hurry to hear a story too!" The old man squinted up at him before finally nodding. "I'm going to hold you to that. You owe me, you know. You're lucky this old man needs feeding more than he needs to talk today." And with that he pushed past America into the diner, smacking his hands against his belly as he called out to the waitress.

America waited in the doorway a moment longer. He had the strangest feeling in his chest for a moment, like he had been poked by not one finger but eight. A shiver ran up his spine and he turned quickly for the door, letting the New York sunshine chase the feeling, and all thoughts of Gods, away.

**Author's Note:**

> Everytime I've read American Gods over the past few years I've thought about this fanfic, then when I finally wrote it I let it sit waiting for an ending for a couple of months. Thank you to Mr Nancy for helping out.
> 
> This fic may gain one additional chapter in the future, as I've an idea for a flashback with Scotland I couldn't fit into the main narrative which I'd still like to write.


End file.
